


Blackbird

by DrCyrusBortel



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies)
Genre: 1950s, 1960s, Cold War, Cold War gone Hot, F/M, Love on the Atomic Battlefield, Shipping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 16:07:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,369
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22159831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DrCyrusBortel/pseuds/DrCyrusBortel
Summary: Hiccup finally achieves his dream of becoming a fighter pilot – in a superfast interceptor derivative of the legendary Blackbird reconnaissance aircraft, no less. Trouble is, he’s flying backseat to ace pilot Astrid Hofferson. Can love still bloom on the nuclear battlefields of a Cold War gone hot?  Or will Astrid kill him before the H-bombs do?Now up to Ch. 30+ on FF.net: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13424535/1/Blackbird
Relationships: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Astrid Hofferson
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	1. Chapter 1

This story is set in an alternate history scenario. Unhistorical persons, technologies or events should be objects of merriment, and of no cause for alarm.

Blackbird is [also posted](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13424535/1/Blackbird) on FF.net. 

=O=

Over The Himalayas

Astrid Hofferson scanned the horizon – a hazy pale blue line of thick soupy air, dwarfed utterly by the expanse of purple stratosphere and vault of night-black space that stretched above and beyond it. Without blinking an eye, she went into a wide turn, and shifted her gaze downward. 45,000 feet – fifteen kilometers! - below her beckoned the Himalayas, Roof of the World, an endless expanse of craggy, snowcapped peaks, rocky mountain passes, and dirty white glaciers.

She flinched as the harsh sunlight shone directly into her cockpit, raising her gloved hand to cover her helmet visor. In the distance, she caught a glimpse of her wingman, 2,000 feet below her.

Astrid checked her radar again. Nada. Zilch. “Longhouse, this is Nadder 1. I have lost contact with the bogies; repeat, I have no visual or radar contact.”

“Nadder 1, this is Longhouse. They’re right under you. Bogeys are at 15,000 feet and descending, heading due north at 0.7 mach… and… they’re off our scopes. Prepare to go down.”

Astrid cursed. Designed to intercept supersonic high-altitude bombers, the F-106A Delta Dart was a creature of the stratosphere, a fact which showed in the sleek interceptor’s long, thin body, single tall tail, and huge triangle-shaped delta wing.

Unfortunately, the bogeys had hit the deck. The big radar in the large, pointed nose of the F-106, powerful as it was, could not track or engage targets near the horrendous clutter created by radar reflections off the ground. To allow her radar to pick up the bogeys, Astrid needed to catch her targets against a backdrop of empty sky – which meant either going astride or below them.

In the thick muck below, slower but more maneuverable fighters stood a better chance of outfighting Astrid’s interceptor. But, even shorn of its high-altitude advantages, the Delta Dart could still be deadly if flown well.

Astrid was one of the best, and she knew it.

Her wingman was another matter. “Lieutenant, hang back and hold at angels 10. Watch my back, and kill ‘em if they pop up. I’m going in.”

“Got it, Captain. Nadder 2 out. Gonna be chillin at 10,000 feet, doin’ overwatch.”

“Copy.” While Astrid would have preferred a more aggressive two-on-two fight, she was keenly aware of Tuffnut’s limitations. Flying defensive was well within Nadder 2’s abilities.

Astrid tipped her nose over, and plunged into the rocky crags of the Himalayas, punching through cloud layers as she went.

The F-106 shuddered as it broke the sound barrier, and the thick air seemed to shake her like a leaf. Astrid took a deep breath as the glaciers leapt towards her. “Okay, Stormfly. Hold together, old girl.” She pulled hard on the stick, and the F-106 leveled out just under the mountain peaks.

Astrid banked hard to avoid a mountain. Tuffnut hollered on the radio. “Astrid, I see ‘em! Your three o’clock high!”

The F-106’s nose pitched briefly down, and Astrid got her first glimpse of her foes – a pair of pencil-thin jets with swept-back wings, a steeply raked tail and a sunken nose hiding a huge jet engine. Indian Air Force MiG-21s, flying low at barely 3,000 feet to avoid radar.

Astrid keyed her mic. “Longhouse, bandits sighted. Two MiG-21s, angels 3, 400 knots, 62/51 Bullseye. Getting under them.”

Since breaking off diplomatic relations with the _Joint Government of the Pacific_ two years prior, Communist India had become increasingly bellicose regarding the outstanding Pacifican-Indian border disputes. At the behest of Moscow, Indian penetration flights – flown by a mix of Indian pilots and Soviet “instructors” - were now violating Joint Government airspace on a weekly basis, often ranging far beyond the usual Indian claims and flying deep into Tibet and Yunnan.

Astrid gritted her teeth as she awaited the inevitable orders to observe the enemy.

“Hey Cap! Bet you’re sorry you voted for 'em now, huh?”

“Shut up, you pinko.” Astrid seethed. Tuffnut just laughed.

For months, Portland had denied any and all requests to shoot down the intruding flights. What was the point, argued the strategists, of getting involved in a war in dirt-poor South Asia when the real prize – the one dangling before the jaws of a half-dozen Soviet tank armies – was wealthy, populous, and heavily industrialized Western Europe?

The logic was convincing in the faraway capital – it had to have been if the smart people in charge had been convinced - but the Administration’s policy was still heavily resented by the proud pilots of the JGAF Aerospace Defense Command.

Longhouse – ground control - came back in over the radio. “You are cleared to fire, Nadder 1.”

Astrid did a double take.“Roger.”

Someone in Portland had apparently changed their mind.

Tuffnut almost squealed with excitement. “Cap, you’re in range!” Astrid kept an eye on the bandits. While her radar could indeed lock on, Astrid knew the radar could see in a cone much wider than her missiles could reliably hit the maneuvering enemy jets. She needed to get the enemy into her killzone _first._

With an eye on the radar, Astrid inched the Dart towards the ground, and Stormfly jigged as Astrid jockeyed for a good launch position. _Not this time, you bastards._ She turned on the radar, and the set beeped.

“Have tone! Fox one! Fox one!”

A pair of radar-guided AIM-4E Falcon missiles streaked from Astrid’s jet towards the nearest MiG – which just sat there, seemingly oblivious to its impending doom.

_So, bad radar warning receivers, then._

The two missiles closed the five kilometers in as many seconds, and the first to arrive blew the MiG out of the sky.

No parachute.

_Huh. Usually, at least one of the missiles doesn’t work properly._

The other MiG immediately performed a sharp roll to the deck, below Astrid’s radar horizon. Astrid turned her radar off as it filled with ground clutter, switched to infrared, and was pressed into her seat as she gave chase.

The MiG ducked into a verdant valley, following the huge green wrinkle in the earth as it wound between imposing mountain peaks. Villages, streams, and hills flashed by Astrid’s cockpit window at just under the speed of sound.

All of a sudden, the MiG crested a mountain, and the ground below her turned grey and white as Astrid turned to follow.

Astrid’s head spun as she tried to reacquire the MiG. _If you can’t see the enemy, you’re dead._

She looked down. There the MiG was, barely a hundred meters above the ground, barreling down the side of the mountain on full afterburner like a crazed skier.

 _We’ll see who’s crazier._ Astrid dove after the MiG.

Astrid held her fire. While her infrared AIM-4G Falcons (basically Falcons with infrared instead of radar seekers) might be able to track the hot afterburner, she (as before) needed to get the bandit into her engagement basket first. 

The F-106 and the MiG scraped the tops of mountains, barreled above jagged mountain passes, and soared past glaciers in a mad chase as the MiG fled for safer skies.

“Captain! I’ve got the bandit on infrared! He’s bringing you in a turn-around south! He’s heading home! You wanna break off and make another run?” Tuffnut’s was frantic.

Astrid kept her eyes on the MiG. “No. We’re keeping up the pressure and bleeding him dry.”

Fighter combat was all about energy management. In a fight, the higher and/or faster fighter had more energy to dive, turn, and run, allowing it to evade, disengage or engage at will - maneuvers which bled energy. By contrast, the lower, slower fighter, while sometimes capable of making tighter turns, was… more or less a sitting duck where missiles or gun passes were concerned. The goal of a fighter pilot was to set up a fight so that he or she preserved his/her own energy while exhausting the enemy’s, allowing high-energy missile shots or easy gun runs to be made against a target without enough energy left to dodge.

Astrid kept one eye on her airspeed, and another on the MiG’s. She was closing on the bastard… three klicks, and the liquid-nitrogen chilled infrared seekers of the AIM-4G Falcon missiles were nice and cool. 

The MiG popped right in front of her infrared camera. On instinct, Astrid jammed hard on the trigger. “Fox two! Fox two!” One missile popped from Stormfly… and corkscrewed to the valley floor, courtesy of a malfunctioning rocket motor.

The other Falcon burned towards the MiG… which promptly turned and rolled away. The missile tried valiantly to follow – but the enemy pilot had timed his turn beautifully, and the missile simply failed to keep up with the turn, streaking uselessly past the MiG.

Astrid swore as Stormfly followed the MiG’s turn into another canyon, bleeding energy in the process. _Out of missiles time to disengage._ The F-106 might have had better thrust than the MiG _gun kills aren’t worth it_ , but she was getting a little too slow for…

“Captain, he’s leading you into a big gorge and…”

The MiG made a hard turn ahead of a mountain, and Astrid swore as she was forced to pull up – losing even more energy. In an instant, she was slow, high, and vulnerable. And the MiG was behind her.

Astrid put Stormfly into a huge, tilted vertical loop (a wingover), and as she approached the top – the apogee – of her loop, snapped her head back to track the _white plume of death headed right for me oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap …_

She hit apogee. Astrid’s world went half-dark as blood rushed from her head, stymied only by the high-pressure pants of her g-suit. Stormfly seemed to hang in the air, _too slow, too slow_ , her airspeed mortgaged for altitude by gravity, that indifferent bastard… 

_Now or never._

She yanked hard on the stick and rolled. Outside her window, the heatseeker rolled past her, her airspeed picked up as she shed altitude, and she began to pull out of her loop _yes yes yes yes yes wait_ …

…and she yanked hard on the stick again, just in time to avoid a second heat-seeking missile. She wasn’t the only one who could salvo-launch unreliable missiles.

Astrid completed her loop-de-loop, and she leveled off so close to the ground she could see individual boulders being carried along the glacier.

The MiG was still burning for home. But having lost energy in multiple desperate acrobatic maneuvers, it was low and slow. And, underpowered though the F-106 was in comparison to the newer F-4 Phantom, it still had more horses in it than the MiG.

Astrid kept her afterburner on full as she circled gently back, where the MiG was struggling to stay on the deck. She bore down on the hapless MiG.

_Gotcha._

Her radio crackled to life. “Nadder 1, this is Longhouse. Advise disengage; we’ve got another asset in play.”

Astrid frowned. “Screw it.” Hands on the stick, she brought the target into her gunsights, took aim, and squeezed the trigger.

She led the target perfectly. The Gatling cannon, whining sharply as its six barrels spun, tore through the MiG, shredding it like tissue paper with explosive shells. She whooped as the MiG, a wing missing, went into a spin… and made a hard turn as her radar warning receiver flared to life.

For a third time in less than a minute, Astrid Hofferson’s life froze as she watched a huge missile flare past her F-106… to smash onto the rocks below.

She pitched her nose up to a clear blue sky, and turned her radar on before she knew what she was doing.

A tiny dot, 70,000 feet above her, zipped past her display in less than thirty seconds.

Astrid thanked whichever egghead engineer had ever invented the IFF box.

“Cap! Did you see that?! Holy shit that was impressive! It came out of frickkin’ nowhere!”

_Holy crap I almost died back there how could I have been so stupid._

“Oh, and Cap? Does this mean we can use our guns next time?”

Astrid shook her head vigorously as she climbed back to saner altitudes. “No. Most of you can’t shoot for crap – and you’ll get yourself killed trying to score gun kills. Unless you aced the gun course, stick to missiles.” Awe crept into her voice. “Although, by the looks of things, we aren’t going to be prime-time for much longer.”

The Blackbird had arrived at the Himalayas. 

=O=

Author’s note:

_Real world: In 1963, the prototype YF-12A Blackbird, an interceptor cousin of the SR-71, began flight testing. Possessing a stupendous combat radius of 2,400 kilometers and capable of similar performance as the SR-71, the F-12B (the production version of the experimental YF-12) would have been a formidable interceptor had it entered service. Three bases with F-12Bs would have been able to effectively defend all of North America from Soviet nuclear bombers. Contrary to popular belief, the YF-12 program was intended to produce actual warplanes, and was not a mere cover for the SR-71 spyplane. Orders were in fact placed for 93 aircraft, but the program was cancelled (when the production tooling was ordered destroyed by Robert McNamara, bypassing Congress) amidst controversy regarding the F-12B’s cost-effectiveness._


	2. Chapter 2

Berk Air Force Base (AFB)

Qinghai Province, Joint Government of the Pacific

“They’re coming in!”

Hiccup Haddock dropped the sheaf of typewritten reports he was reading and ran out of the hanger into the freezing tarmac. The bone-dry freezing wind sweeping off the peaks of the Himalayas caught him right in the face, and he backed into the hanger to grab his parka before braving the wind once again.

Making his way around a small knoll of technicians, he emerged onto the flightline. Beyond the row of parked F-106s, their grey-white paint gleaming in the mid-morning sun, an F-106 (a ‘Six) descended onto the runway. Astride the blocky letters proclaiming that the ‘Six belonged to the J.G. Air Force 綜國空軍, someone had painted an indigo dragon across the grey-white fuselage of the aircraft.

The interceptor screeched onto the tarmac, and rolled to a gentle halt just outside a hangar.

The canopy cracked open, and a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman rose to her feet, her hair swaying in the wind as she doffed her helmet with an easy smile. Astrid Hofferson. Hiccup held his breath, and sighed a little inside.

 _The prettiest girl on Earth._

Wild cheers erupted from the ground crew. Astrid took a gentle bow, and stepped gracefully off the ladder and onto the ground. She stepped back a little as a pair of technicians waltzed up to her aircraft and, stencil in hand, spray-painted two more kill tallies onto _Stormfly II_.

With a theatrical flourish, the technicians removed the stencil, revealing four red stars. More cheers ensued, and Astrid took another bow.

Hiccup took a deep breath, and pushed through the crowd. “Astrid! How did it go? Did the radar work?”

Astrid shrugged at the weapons systems engineer. “Worked as advertised, Hiccup. No mishaps, clean terrain picture, and beautiful tone – both radar missiles guided perfectly. One IR Falcon went screwy on me, though. Corkscrewed right off the rail and into the ground.”

Hiccup nodded enthusiastically. “Good, good. Sorry about the infrared Falcon. If the motor’s buggy, we’re on the list for a field x-ray machine; we can’t really check until then.” He thought of saying something about being proud to be part of the team that operated the complete weapons system – aircraft, maintenance teams, crew, diagnostic/support equipment, and all - but decided it would sound too braggy.

By the time Hiccup came up with a _proper_ reply, Astrid was busy briefing a gaggle of wide-eyed fighter pilots on her aerial engagement, from her decision to follow doctrine by starting the engagement from below with radar-guided missiles to her failure to disengage immediately when out of missiles – a mistake that almost cost her her life. 

_If only Astrid’s radar had had a less restrictive targeting envelope, she could have started with infrared…_

Hiccup had an idea.

=O=

“Oh dear god! Hiccup’s having another one of his ideas! We gotta go check this out!

Astrid blanched, ran out of the officer’s club into the freezing night, and hopped onto a boxy Dodge pickup truck bound for the flightline. Hiccup was a good engineer and apparently an excellent manager – heck, since he’d shown up, readiness rates had gone through the roof, and her radar had never worked so well – but he occasionally got a little too enthusiastic with the equipment.

The pickup truck passed by the open hangar door. Astrid felt a pulse of heat flash across her face, and the pickup suddenly skidded to a halt.

Snotlout, at the wheel, sounded somewhat shaken. “What the heck was that?”

Astrid turned towards the open hangar – and saw Stormfly. Someone had removed her nose, exposing her big MA-1 radar – apparently for some kind of test.

The someone is question was probably a very concerned-looking Hiccup Haddock, who was taking glances at the instruments on his support cart and pressing buttons in quick succession.

Reacting on instinct, Astrid charged across the tarmac, grabbed a spare fire extinguisher, and ran towards Stormfly, just in time to see a lick of flame emerge from the avionics.

She doused the entire radar block in fog until the extinguisher was empty.

“Hiccup, what the heck did you do to Stormfly?!”

Hiccup looked just as angry as she did. “Me? You’re the ones who ignored the cones and ran out in front of a working radar!”

Astrid felt somewhat sick.

Hiccup chewed his lip. “You’ll be fine! You were in the beam for like a second, and inside a metal box.”

“You nearly fried us, man!” Tuffnut had finally caught up to her, and Snotlout wasn’t far behind. 

Hiccup turned back to his instruments, and waved his arm dismissively. “I put out cones!”

Snotlout grabbed Hiccup’s shirt with one arm, and jabbed a finger in his chest with the other. “It’s Friday night! You’re supposed to be at the club or something, not shooting a radar at lord knows what!”

“Hughes was testing an experimental ground clutter reduction box. I had to try it out!”

Astrid was incredulous. “On my plane? Couldn’t you have used the test rig?”

Hiccup threw his hands in the air. “You people drove thirty meters in front of an operating radar and burned out the receiver! If I hadn’t shut everything down as quickly as I had, we’d be looking at a lot more damage than this.”

Astrid fumed. Stormfly would be out of commission for a week while the ground crew waited on spare parts. “We’re practically at war! We need every bird we can get, Hiccup! This isn’t helping! And cones? At night? Really? Did you even think to prepare a fire extinguisher?”

Hiccup did a double-take. “Yeah, we’re at war. Which means we roll out upgrades to the fleet as fast as possible!”

Snotlout punched him in the gut. “You _prick_! First there was the new IRST! Piece of crap display that kept distracting me from my controls! Then you put in the new radar – which broke twice on me while I was pulling high gees – and then there was the new flight computer! I nearly died when that thing failed on a combat mission!”

Snotlout spat on Hiccup as he doubled over in pain. “All you care about is your stupid state-of-the-art wire boxes! You get to sit here safe and sound while we risk our lives on untested voodoo magic black boxes that you insist on putting in every one of our new birds before they work properly!”

Astrid felt that the claim was somewhat unfair. She knew the squadron had fewer bugs than the squadron next door when it came to new gear, and Hiccup always got them first dibs on the stuff to boot.

But Stormfly was out of commission for a week.

“Just get Stormfly flying again. And no more of… all of this.” Astrid gestured to Hiccup and the smoking multimillion-dollar radar set, and stormed off into the night.

=O=

Hiccup walked dejectedly into the darkened hanger. Noting the glum look on his subordinate’s face, Gobber hobbled over to Hiccup, his prosthetic leg - a parting gift from the Imperial Japanese surface-to-air missile technicians who had blasted Gobber’s Thunderchief from the skies of Korea – pinging against the concrete.

“Had a run-in with Astrid again, eh, Lieutenant? You’ve got to get your mind off her, lad! Live a little.” Gobber sighed. “Youth doesn’t last forever, you know.”

Hiccup said nothing.

Gobber shrugged. “This came in for you.”

Hiccup’s eyes widened at the sight of the Air Force Personnel Center emblem on the envelope. 

Gobber frowned. “That not-a-war in Bengal – sorry, East Pakistan, is that what they’re calling it these days? – is heating up. My old Thunderchief buddies say that people are being actually getting shot down. It might just turn out to be the Siberian meat-grinder all over again.”

Gobber’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Are you really sure you want to stick that wonderful brain of yours into harm’s way, Hiccup? The Air Force needs good systems engineers as much as it needs fighter pilots, you know.”

Hiccup stopped in his tracks.

Gobber sighed. “Hiccup… flying fighters – especially in this whole “not-a-war” - isn’t going to make Astrid fall in love with you. And there are easier ways to communicate with your father. I myself have found talking to be of great…”

Hiccup ripped the letter open, read it, and tossed it away with a grunt.

Gobber picked it up, and began to read it in an officious tone. “Ahem. Lieutenant Hiccup H. Haddock the Third, your request for transfer to fighter school in preparation for a combat posting in South Asia has been denied because of outstanding strategic priorities… Aerospace Defense Command blah blah blah… physical aptitude blah blah blah…”

Gobber crossed his arms with a knowing smirk. Hiccup turned towards him. “Did you do this? Did dad…”

“No lad. This is why they turned down your request.” Gobber grabbed a manila envelope from a convenient table, and handed its contents to Hiccup. “New orders? What the heck…”

Gobber chuckled. “I told you you just had to wait your turn. They were buying the birds en masse, and since ADC is mostly single seat, they’re a little short on flight-qualified engineers for backseat.” _And you’re one of the best. Just needed to wait for another Lieutenant to show up and take your spot._

Hiccup began laughing. “I’m going to fly! I’m actually going to fly in a Blackbird!”

Gobber waved a dismissive arm. “Don’t get ahead of yourself. It’s backseat.”

Hiccup wagged his finger. “At Mach 3.3, Gobber. At Mach 3.3.”

=O=

"To one more kill?" Snotlout raised his glass.

“To making ace.” Astrid responded.

"To making ace!"

The collected fighter pilots clinked their bottles, and began downing their beers. Astrid finished her swig, and put down her second empty bottle of Tsingtao.

Someone turned on the jukebox, and Astrid began tapping her foot to _Heartbreak Hotel_ as it blared across the room. She wasn’t too fond of the new rock n’ roll fad, and Presley was probably as pinko-commie as they came, but it wasn’t bad to listen to. She looked around the room – and turned to Tuffnut.

While he had partaken in the cheer, Tuffnut looked less than enthusiastic as he nursed his beer.

Astrid cocked her head at her wingman.“Sorry you didn’t make the cut, Tuff.”

Tuffnut smiled. “Well, someone has to train up the new guys when you guys leave. There are a lot of tricks they don’t teach you in fighter school.”

Astrid smirked. “And don’t we know it.” 

Snotlout snorted. “Oh please. All the best pilots are going to the Blackbirds. With Blackbirds owning the skies, Delta Darts are going to be gap fillers.”

Astrid glared, but Snotlout felt no need to back off. “It’s what they call a Hi-Lo mix. We’re going to be the High part – cause we’re the expensive, awesome heavy hitters, and at 80,000 feet – and you’re going to be the low part – the cheap part of the force that gives us bulk and numbers, you know, so the enemy has more targets to shoot at and won’t hit the High part as hard…”

“I’ll show you who hits hard!” Tuffnut sprang to his feet and threw a punch at Snotlout. Snotlout tumbled to the floor, clutching his nose. Quick as a flash, Astrid kicked Snotlout in the rear… pushing him just far enough so that Tuffnut’s stomp landed on the floor instead of on Snotlout’s ribs. “Calm down, Tuff. Jorgenson’s just being an asshole.”

Tuffnut glared at Snotlout. “Oh is he now? Cause you know, the Blackbird is a two-man jet. I hope your assholery lands you in deep crap, Jorgenson. I hope your backseater gets so sick and tired of you he becomes your… backstabber! How about that! Or, oh, oh… I hope you get the worst backseater ever, and never get to shoot anything down.” Tuffnut spat.

Astrid looked thoughtful.

Tuffnut continued his somewhat disorganized rant. “Yeah… Aerospace Defense is so short of backseaters, we’re even letting engineers like Hiccup without a drop of fighter pilot blood in their veins fly backseat! So good luck with that!”

=O=


	3. Chapter 3

Portland National Capital Region

Joint Government

The tiny motorcade wound its way through the broad avenues of the capital. Just another limousine escorted by a pair of police motorcycles, in a city overflowing with bureaucrats and officials, dignitaries and functionaries, politicians and staffers.

Stoick Haddock peered through the tinted windows of the limo as the city cruised by. Between pagoda-topped art-deco skyscrapers and modernist glass-and-steel edifices, between masonry apartments with sweeping glaze-tiled roofs and boring blocks of concrete domiciles, a bewildering array of shops, markets, and restaurants hawked their wares to hordes of pedestrians. On a street corner, a man stir-fried chestnuts in a huge, smoking, wok, the frayed tubing of his liquefied natural gas container of no concern to the gathered crowd. Next to him, another hairy-chested man worked his grill, stacked to the brim with squid-on-a-stick.

Not much different from Houston, or Seattle, or Shanghai, or Guangzhou, or any of the other great cities of the Joint Government, really. In New York, the grill might be selling hot dogs, and in Guangzhou, curried fishballs. All on sticks, of course.

Back in Beijing, before the war, Stoick had had the good fortune to be stationed a block away from the second-best lamb-on-a-stick stand in Hebei Province (or so the vendor proclaimed). The kebab man had nigh-perfected his art, coating juicy, tender mutton strips with just enough cumin to excite the palate while letting the natural flavor of mutton shine. And every time he brought Hiccup to the stall, the kebab man would always prepare a special kebab just for his son, with a little less cumin on the front end. Because Hiccup could never finish a whole kebab, and Stoick would have to eat the rest.

It was all gone now. The kebab stand, his old base, the old house – the Japanese had razed them all to the ground, along with most of Beijing, during their long retreat. Valka never wrote. And Hiccup… never wrote either. All he had left was this job, an empty apartment, and ulcers for his trouble.

His stomach growled.

The other occupant of the car tittered. “You know, we have a phone in the car. I could call the kitchen, and have them whip something up.” The slim, raven-haired young woman gestured to a corded phone on the divider. 

Stoick adjusted the tie on his dress uniform. “Oh, that won’t be necessary, Ms. Heather. I wouldn’t want to impose.”

Heather shook her head. “Suit yourself. And you can call me Heather.”

The motorcade crossed the fast-flowing waters of the Columbia River.

Beyond the skyscrapers, bridges, and high-voltage power lines, Stoick could just make out the cone of Mt. Hood.

Huh. He thought it’d have been bigger. 

Heather caught his disappointed sigh. “First time in Portland, General Haddock? Yeah, we think it’s pretty middle-of-the-road too.”

Portland had been a compromise decision – a sleepy backwater of a town with rice paddies, a somewhat-navigable river, and a barely traversable trail over the Rockies, chosen for its equidistance from the wealthy centers of Ming-era colonial power at Golden Gate and Vancouver.

The motorcade barreled through the checkpoint at the old city wall, and screeched to a halt before a curtain of ornamental bamboo plants. _Mmm… pickled bamboo shoots in chili oil…_

Stoick took deep, measured breaths as Heather led him past bamboo displays, a zig-zagging bridge over a lotus pond ( _mmm… lotus seeds_ ), and decorative gazebos.

He tried to remember the sheer terror he had felt, back in the cramped cockpit of his Thunderchief, every time they went feet dry over Honshu. He tried to remember the ribbons of flak that had chased him across the sky over Tokyo, of the SAM that had nearly gotten him over the Japanese redoubt at Pusan – and the other SAM that had gotten his wingman.

He had survived fifty sorties over the Home Islands. He could survive anything.

The gardens ended. Beyond a plain, open lawn stood the white marbled walls of a mansion – a neoclassical building, with obvious Greco-roman influences. The somewhat incongruous structure had been built a century and a half ago, after the original wood-and-stone palace was gutted in the Great Fire of Portland. 

They walked right in.

=O=

“…none of their flights have gone past their claim lines since the shootdown. The Indians aren’t as unafraid of war as they claim, Mr. Secretary.”

Stoick and Heather scurried into the meeting room, careful to avoid General Kwok’s gaze, and took up spots near the back.

The Secretary shook his jowls. “General, the fundamentals of the situation are the same as they were before the shootdown: that wasteland is not worth a war. We stick to the plan: we hold in the west and give ground in the east. They’ll get to declare victory, see sense, and drop their unreasonable demand for both territories. We keep our highway; they get their wasteland.”

The Secretary of foreign affairs, a former naval officer, had spent his entire political life navigating byzantine provincial politics – and he’d done it so well that he had gotten a cabinet position within a decade. Foreign Affairs had fit like a glove.

And he also knew, from experience, that intuition could not be allowed to override the decision trees and cost-benefit calculi of armies of analysts.

“It’s _our_ wasteland!” the General roared.

The Secretary nodded. “Damn right it is. But it’s not worth a fight. The analytics are clear: we have to compromise in the interest of good neighbourliness. You have to see the bigger picture.” 

The General harrumphed. “This lily-livered appeasement is a mistake. They’re just going to come back for more, and more, and more. As for the big picture – you can bet that the Soviets are using this to test how we would react to a takeover of Berlin. It’s a test of will, Mr. Secretary. The world is watching.”

The Secretary crossed his arms. “And what happens when we start killing Soviet technicians and Soviet advisors, General? What happens if the Indians escalate with a massive, Soviet-backed invasion of West Pakistan, or march on Karachi? What will the world see then?”

“Hellfire.” A raspy voice emerged from the other side of the room. “Nuclear hellfire.”

A hulking giant of a man stepped forward from the edge of the room. Nonregulation dreadlocks spilled from his head almost to the three stars on the shoulders of his Air Force service uniform.

The Secretary smiled. “General Bludvist! Please do continue - you’re illustrating my point better than I could!”

The room fell silent.

General Drago Bludvist took great pains to growl every word. “Gentlemen, as you know, you have no… ability to oppose a massive Indian invasion of Pakistan.”

Stoick nodded. With the cuts to conventional forces, the ground-pounders were running on a shoestring. Facing half a dozen Soviet Tank Armies, JG Army Europe had barely enough tanks to cover a hasty retreat to the English Channel. But holding ground had never been the point of JG Army Europe.

Drago began to walk theatrically around the room. The chamber seemed to hush with every footfall. “The… survival… of Pakistan is a core… national interest. So… if the Indians invade, and the Soviets… back them, we… Strategic Air Command… will launch a massive attack on the Soviet Union. Massive retaliation.”

He twirled a large binder almost like one would a staff. The cover read SIOP. “I have here in my hands… the plans… the codes… the orders! …to unleash 2,000 bomber sorties and missile strikes… on 3,000 Indian, Russian, and East European targets… totalling over 30,000 megatons… of thermonuclear hellfire.”

Drago grinned - a nasty, toothy grin. “The Soviets can’t match that. They might kill… 150 million Pacificans with their few… ballistic missiles, and with the fallout. But that’s… a tenth of us. We can kill… ninety percent of them. We can kill… them all. And they know it. So… they will not invade.”

The Secretary nodded. “Right. Thank you, General…”

Drago spoke. “But if we are to… destroy… the Soviet Union… we must do it soon. Every day, the Soviets add more missiles… more H-bombs… more defenses our bombers must overcome. Over the next century, nuclear war… is inevitable. We must crush them _now_! When we are strong and they weak! And not later!” Drago was practically screaming.

Stoick shifted uncomfortably. Even amongst the publicly bomb-happy generals of Strategic Air Command (and they _had_ to look bomb-happy to properly scare the Soviets), General Bludvist had a reputation for… excessive bloodlust. One that was well-earned, apparently. 

General Kwok nodded approvingly. “The Reds are out to get us, Mr. Secretary – they got India, Iraq, Syria, Egypt – and they _nearly_ got Iran. And now they’re out for Pakistan and, god forbid, the Province of Tibet! Once the Soviet war machine hooks up with India’s half-billion people, we’re going to be steamrollered – if we’re not subverted from within first. The Soviet menace must be nipped in the bud. History will judge…”

The Secretary’s face reddened. “Right! So, since we are _not_ genocidal mass murders, and _don’t_ want to kill them all, we don’t want a war, and aren’t going to start a war!”

He rubbed his chin. “You people will get a war _after_ they cross their claim lines in the east. A _limited_ war. With engagement zones, red lines, the works! Because this Administration will _do our darnedest_ to make sure a damned border dispute over a desolate wasteland doesn’t escalate to nuclear hellfire! Am I clear?!”

The gathered generals, and even the Secretary of Defense, nodded.

The Secretary sat down. “Good. Now that we’re all more or less on the same page, let’s get down to today’s agenda. With the situation in India potentially worsening, the Administration has decided to activate SASCOM, and you all…” he gestured to the gathered generals, “have been tapped for the new command.”

Admiral Yeung was the first to speak. “What’s the point of South Asian Command? Why the hell can’t PACCOM handle this one? Or heck, let MAC-EP do it! They’re already knee-deep in Indian insurgents!”

Stoick rolled his eyes. Pacific Command (PACCOM) was Navy turf through-and-through, and the Navy already had its greasy fingers all the way in Military Assistance Command East Pakistan (MAC-EP).

The Secretary sighed. “The decision has been made. And if I must repeat myself, nearly all SASCOM assets will be MAINCOM assets, not PACCOM ones.” He flipped through a binder. “Item one: Air Force is lead service on this one. General Haddock will be in overall command. Objections?”

Stoick gulped as General Kwok rose to defend the Army’s position on the matter.

=O=

The meeting had gone well. At the very least, there had been no additional shouting matches. And he, General Stoick Haddock, was now in charge of the entirety of South Asian Command. Over a division’s worth of airborne and mountain troops, a few brigades of helicopters, a few Navy destroyers (hah!), and the Thirty-Fourth and Twenty-Fifth Air Forces were at his disposal. Well, kind of. For now, his forces existed mostly on paper, to be called in from other commitments as needed, and General Kwok was sure to keep his ground troops under his exclusive control if he could get away with it. And in the perverse reasoning of the military bureaucracy, General Bludvist would, during non-nuclear operations, be subordinate to him. Or was that was bad news…

“General Stoick. One more thing.” The Secretary gestured to Heather. I’m sure you’ve met Agent Heather. She’ll be your intelligence liaison at SASCOM. At the same time, she will report directly back to us, and keep us informed of your progress. Just to give the Administration a clearer picture of what’s going on in those tall, faraway mountains.”

Stoick glared at the Secretary. “I don’t need a minder.”

The Secretary gathered up his things, and headed for the door. “The decision has been made. Have fun working together.”

=O=

_Author's note: Readers are strongly encouraged to come to their own conclusions regarding the wisdom of decisions made by characters in-story. For instance, in the exchange above, the Secretary's position appears reasonable (is it?), but why is Drago's cruel logic incorrect (Answer 1: what will other countries think of your preventive nuclear war)? Arguments for both these positions were made at various times during the real-world Cold War._

**Readers should note that this story is no longer updated on Archive of Our Own, as a result of AoA's rather unwieldy input system. Updates under the same author and title have since continued on fanfiction dot net. Chapter 4 continues at https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13424535/4/Blackbird Blackbird is now up to Ch. 30 or so. Thank you.**


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